MADE FOR YOU AND ME 2: hive Being (Stanzas 2017—part 43)
Let's workshop this stanza sequence about conga lines, vaginas, terror, God, addiction, suicide, self-deception, art, alienation, jealousy, photography, strokes, burglars, Thanatos vs. Eros, AIDS
scent of the day: Lagerfeld Cologne (Vintage), by Karl Lagerfeld. Opening with various greens and citruses that help the clothesline aldehydes (metallic and frosty) create an impression of arctic-blue ice in a glass of bitter orange curaçao rounded by spicey herbs (anisic tarragon, musky clary sage) on a blindingly bright winter day, Lagerfeld Cologne is a late-seventies Italian-horn-in-chest-hair powder bomb made famous by Al Pacino (who felt it helped him get into the hyper-machismo character of Tony Montana in Scarface)—its dry-down elements contributing a leathery warmth to the winter scene (cabin porch, woodburning stove, lines of coke, Steely Dan playing, a pipe being smoked) as the sun dies down with the citruses and the scent sits close to the skin: dusty and haylike, just like Chergui, from iris and tobacco (the lynchpin-duo for its rugged-yet-sophisticated feel); incensey and woody from the sandalwood and cedar; sour from the rose; animalic from the jasmine and musk; sweet and creamy from the vanilla and tonka; inky and earthy from the patchouli and oakmoss.
he swore this would be the last one last time screams for help in an envelop of sarcasm angry at the companion for giving words to what we fear artists mistaking being sick for giving birth her accent, long tucked from the light of shame, came out under gunpoint stickup unwelcome corroborations of what we sense about ourselves attempting to crawl away behind a conga line too short not to rugburn the knees yet another round inexperienced for the terror of the end—cherish custom heaven answers human prayers to such a suspicious tee that it seems no more than the obversion of our anxieties wished upon a star—“a test,” he said; “a rubber-meets-road fact that derails only fakers of the faith!” consider the possibility that elders in the supermarket ogle the child, legs kicking self-entertainment in the egg-and-toddler seat of the cart, for no other reason creepier than that theirs had grown too quickly he lunged at the daylight burglar, like a starved man at bread—his knife slashing less out of the libidinous urge to safeguard his survival shelter than out of the suicidal hope to reduce psychic tension to the null point desperation to break free from what she saw as a prison of subjective experience was, just like her very seeing, yet another manifestation of subjective experience— a closed-circuit torment that would end if only she had courage to pull the trigger their vision lines parallel to one another, it could seem as if the childhood friends— talking out their growing depression in the wake of unbelievably quick decades— did not believe looking into their windows was necessary for souls to connect duping ourselves along the way makes facing the truth easier if, as is often true, we sensed we were along the way what might help you gather yourself, now numb-legged on some stalled-off toilet (leonine roaring like the others), is recognizing that bathrooms are the very places all of us are pulled to gather ourselves even from the blackest existential night the wide berth he was granted around his wife's coworkers at special events or even around family at holidays—no attempt to get him to chat, no directing at him more than a peripheral eye—suggested to him they had indeed talked about his situation fleeting specks in an indifferent cosmos a massive mirror to freak out jungle beasts living-room barbershops living the scene stripping bombed-out buildings for copper to sell an obstructive theme in your art what about the scene do the aggressive brushstrokes unlock? hobnobbing with celebrities for a chance to have your art live on a few extra measlies he alienates others to prove his alienation almost three decades away in time and yet still not over her: crack cocaine estranged from friends and employment, what more reliable comfort for the troubles—even if ushered in by the drug—than the drug itself? smacked and sent to bed because the child had on a documentary where Attenborough kept repeating, as if in some studio dare, “homo erectus”—the “erectus” descriptor not helping one bit here the feeling of wanting to stop feeling, strong enough to usher in the feeling of suicide—itself the most let’s-just-rub-it-in feeling of them all if our ancestors really are the haunting voices, ritual ceremony anchored in myth, seems better than drugs for keeping them at bay long term if our ancestors really are the haunting voices, ceremonious rituals in their honor seem more reliable (if only given human psychology) than the transient refuge of drugs for keeping them at bay long term his stroke, after which his brush hand has never ceased its tremble at the canvas, has enlivened—electrified—his stroke can you blame a mother for whipping with a hanger when the girl walks around tight enough to tempt even her own father into sin? justifying the invasive study of the handicapped monstrosity, a study that involves radioactive injections, with a reply that persecution dreams rendered ready to hand: “What meaning would its life have compared to the meaning bestowed in the lab?” were he to get an AIDS test there was a chance he would be clean—and so, because he could find hope in that chance only if he did not get the test, he always refused (paralyzed by his fear of putting that hope in harm’s way) junkies start their days deep enough in curled-up hand-wrenching sickness to avoid one another even on the clinic line—but, just as kids new to the playground warm up eventually, clusters of restrained chattiness form in the remission space of methadone funerals proved to be the only time they could all get along, but even here only if it had been one of them dead a photo of his therapist—no, not a photo on a business card (just the photo)—kept in his wallet afraid enough to conjure into reality, through ritual, what you are afraid about: cancer stress, repulsive jealousy, or so on a secret even to himself in a way was his addiction to the secrecy of circling her clit to maddening wetness before someone came back into the room
This is a portion of an ongoing mosaic poem called Made for You and Me. This portion is from the first installment: hive Being (Stanzas 2016-2020). More specifically, it is from the 2017 portion of that five-part work.